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Students’ Preferred Technology In An Ordinary Differential Equations Course

Many mathematics courses rely heavily on technology to enhance teaching and learning. One such class is Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE). There are an abundance of tablet- and computer-based technology options available that claim to help ODE instructors deliver instruction, interact with students, and provide informal feedback to students. We began to search for innovations that were both effective and easy to use and started a resource library that included computer algebra systems, lecture notes from class, and video recordings of both face-to-face and live online lectures. Computer algebra systems include any software or online program that can manipulate or solve mathematical problems that have been entered in traditional mathematical notation. Some examples include Maple and GeoGebra. Lecture notes were captured as they were created during class on Microsoft OneNote and made available to students via the university’s learning management system, Desire2Learn (D2L). Video recordings of lectures, which included both classroom audio and the example work done with a CAS or on a digital whiteboard, were captured using both the built-in recording feature on Microsoft Teams and Kaltura and made available to students via D2L. By using these software and online tools in the classroom, students are better able to focus on the content of the lesson and process of the work over precisely copying equations into their personal notes. Since the creation and management of these resources can be extremely time consuming, we wanted to investigate which instructional technology options students were gravitating towards. We surveyed students to find out which resources students were using and why. In this paper, we focus on which technology options ODE students found most beneficial for instruction, office hours, and formative assessment opportunities.